Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Skins Games and other past events

It’s at this time of year that I think back to the other skins game that used to take place between Christmas and New Year. It was originally known as the GM Goodwrench Skins and was a local, Ontario event. It morphed into a bigger deal and was shown on Sportsnet and had a number of different sponsors over the years, including M&M Meats if memory serves me correctly. There were lots of great teams involved, many of whom had to fly to Toronto on Christmas Day in order to make the show. Paul Savage was the guy behind it.

Eventually, like many other curling events, the sponsorship dried up and it went away.

It got me to thinking about other events that have come and gone. Of course there have been many. My favourite was the old Royals Classic, which started off as a carspiel then turned into a cashspiel with some significant dough. This was one of the most effective spiels I’ve ever seen that combined serious curling with serious partying.